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<h1 class="topictitle1">Prepare for disk failures</h1>
<div><p>Because your data is spread across your disks, it is important
that you consider how to protect your data in the event that one of those
disks fails. Disk protection provides a means to ensure availability of data
stored on disks.</p>
<p>Disk storage is the storage that is either internal to your iSeries™ server
or is attached to it. This disk space, together with your server's main memory,
is regarded by your system as one large storage area. When you save a file,
you do not assign it to a storage location; instead, the system places the
file in the location that ensures the best performance. It may spread the
data in the file across multiple disk units, if that is the best option. When
you add more records to the file, the system assigns additional space on one
or more disk units. This way of addressing storage is known as <dfn class="term">single-level
storage</dfn>.</p>
<p><img src="./delta.gif" alt="Start of change" />In addition to internal disk storage, you can also use IBM<sup>®</sup> TotalStorage<sup>®</sup> Enterprise
Storage Server<sup>®</sup> (ESS) to attach a large volume of external disk units.
ESS provides enhanced disk protection, the ability to copy data quickly and
efficiently to other ESS servers, and the capability of assigning multiple
paths to the same data to eliminate connection failures. For additional information
on IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server (ESS) and its features and to
determine if this solution is right for you, see <a href="http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/storage/disk/enterprise/index.html" target="_blank">Enterprise disk storage</a>.<img src="./deltaend.gif" alt="End of change" /></p>
<div class="section"><img src="./delta.gif" alt="Start of change" /><h4 class="sectiontitle">Device parity protection</h4><p>Device parity
protection allows your system to continue to operate when a disk fails or
is damaged. When you use device parity protection, the disk input/output adapter
(IOA) calculates and saves a parity value for each bit of data. The IOA computes
the parity value from the data at the same location on each of the other disk
units in the device parity set. When a disk failure occurs, the data can be
reconstructed by using the parity value and the values of the bits in the
same locations on the other disks. Your system continues to run while the
data is being reconstructed. </p>
<p><img src="./delta.gif" alt="Start of change" />For an overview of device parity
protection, see <a href="../rzaly/rzalydpp.htm">Device parity
protection</a>.<img src="./deltaend.gif" alt="End of change" /></p>
<p>i5/OS supports two types of device parity protection: </p>
<p><strong>RAID
5</strong></p>
<p>With RAID 5, the system can continue to operate if one disk fails
in a parity set. If more than one disk fails, data will be lost and you must
restore the data for the entire system (or only the affected disk pool) from
the backup media. Logically, the capacity of one disk unit is dedicated to
storing parity data in a parity set consisting of 3 to 18 disk units</p>
<p><strong>RAID
6</strong></p>
<p>With RAID 6, the system can continue to operate if one or two
disks fail in a parity set. If more than two disk units fail, you must restore
the data for the entire system (or only the affected disk pool) from the backup
media. Logically, the capacity of two disk units is dedicated to storing parity
data in a parity set consisting of 4 to 18 disk units. </p>
<p>See <a href="../rzaly/rzalyelmdasdpp.htm">Elements of device parity
protection</a> for detailed comparison of RAID 5 and RAID 6.</p>
<p><img src="./delta.gif" alt="Start of change" /><strong>Write
cache and auxiliary write cache IOA</strong><img src="./deltaend.gif" alt="End of change" /></p>
<p><img src="./delta.gif" alt="Start of change" />When
the system sends a write operation, the data is first written to the write
cache on the disk IOA and then later written to the disk. If the IOA experiences
a failure, the data in the cache may be lost and cause an extended outage
to recover the system.<img src="./deltaend.gif" alt="End of change" /></p>
<p><img src="./delta.gif" alt="Start of change" />The auxiliary write cache is an additional
IOA that has a one-to-one relationship with a disk IOA. The auxiliary write
cache protects against extended outages due to the failure of a disk IOA or
its cache by providing a copy of the write cache which can be recovered following
the repair of the disk IOA. This avoids a potential system reload and gets
the system back on line as soon as the disk IOA is replaced and the recovery
procedure completes. However, the auxiliary write cache is not a failover
device and cannot keep the system operational if the disk IOA, or its cache,
fails.<img src="./deltaend.gif" alt="End of change" /></p>
<p>See <a href="../rzaly/rzalyauxiliary.htm">Write
cache and auxiliary write cache IOA</a> in Disk management for detailed
information on write cache and auxiliary write cache IOA.</p>
<img src="./deltaend.gif" alt="End of change" /></div>
<div class="section"><h4 class="sectiontitle">Mirrored protection</h4><p>Disk mirroring is recommended
to provide the best system availability and the maximum protection against
against disk-related component failures. Data is protected because the system
keeps two copies of the data on two separate disk units. When a disk-related
component fails, the system may continue to operate without interruption by
using the mirrored copy of the data until the failed component is repaired.</p>
<p><img src="./delta.gif" alt="Start of change" />Different levels of mirrored protection are possible, depending
on what hardware is duplicated. The level of mirrored protection determines
whether the system keeps running when different levels of hardware fail. To
understand these different levels of protection, see <a href="../rzaly/rzalymirror3.htm">Determine
the level of protection</a>.<img src="./deltaend.gif" alt="End of change" /></p>
<p><img src="./delta.gif" alt="Start of change" />You can duplicate the following
disk-related hardware:<img src="./deltaend.gif" alt="End of change" /></p>
<ul><li>Disk unit</li>
<li>Disk controllers </li>
<li>I/O bus unit</li>
<li>I/O adapter</li>
<li>I/O processors</li>
<li>A bus</li>
<li><img src="./delta.gif" alt="Start of change" />Expansion towers<img src="./deltaend.gif" alt="End of change" /></li>
<li><img src="./delta.gif" alt="Start of change" />HSL ring<img src="./deltaend.gif" alt="End of change" /></li>
</ul>
<p>For details on mirrored protection, including how it works and how
to plan for it, see <a href="../rzaly/rzalymirror.htm">Mirrored
protection</a>.</p>
</div>
<div class="section"><h4 class="sectiontitle">Independent disk pools</h4><p><img src="./delta.gif" alt="Start of change" />Independent disk
pools (also called independent auxiliary storage pools) enable you to prevent
certain unplanned outages because the data on them is isolated from the rest
of your server. If an independent disk pool fails, your system can continue
to operate on data in other disk pools. Combined with different levels of
disk protection, independent disk pools provide more control in isolating
the effect of a disk-related failure as well as better prevention and recovery
techniques. For detailed information on how to use independent disk pools,
see <a href="../rzaly/rzalyoverview.htm">Independent
disk pools</a>.<img src="./deltaend.gif" alt="End of change" /></p>
</div>
<div class="section"><h4 class="sectiontitle">Geographic mirroring</h4><p>Geographic mirroring is a function
that keeps two identical copies of an independent disk pool at two sites to
provide high availability and disaster recovery. The copy owned by the primary
node is the production copy and the copy owned by a backup node at the other
site is the mirror copy. User operations and applications access the independent
disk pool on the primary node, the node that owns the production copy. Geographic
mirroring is a sub-function of cross-site mirroring (XSM), which is part of
i5/OS Option 41, High Available Switchable Resources. </p>
<p>For details on
geographic mirroring, including how it works and how to plan for it, see <a href="../rzaly/rzalygeographicmirror.htm">Geographic mirroring</a>.</p>
</div>
<div class="section"><img src="./delta.gif" alt="Start of change" /><h4 class="sectiontitle">Multipath disk units</h4><p>You can define up
to eight connections from each LUN (Logical Unit) created on the IBM TotalStorage
Enterprise Storage Server (ESS) to the IOPs on an iSeries server. If you are
using an ESS solution, assigning multiple paths to the same data allows the
data to be accessed even though some failures may occur in other connections
to the data. Each connection for a multipath disk unit functions independently.
Several connections provide availability by allowing disk storage to be used
even if a single path fails. </p>
<p>For details on multipath disk units, including
its requirements, see <a href="../rzaly/rzalymultipath.htm">Considerations for multipath disk units</a>.</p>
<img src="./deltaend.gif" alt="End of change" /></div>
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<div class="parentlink"><strong>Parent topic:</strong> <a href="rzalwprevent_unplanned.htm" title="One way to approach availability is to try to prevent unplanned outages. You can use these different methods to ensure that your system experiences as little unplanned downtime as possible.">Prevent unplanned outages</a></div>
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